XSET's BcJ on Upsetting Sentinels, Challengers Playoffs and His Move from Apex to VALORANT

Esports Meta | A Nerd Street Podcast

XSET's new roster, featuring a new in-game leader, has quickly made waves. Alongside Envy, 100 Thieves and Sentinels, XSET is the only team to qualify for all of NA's biggest VCT events in Masters 1, Challengers Finals 2 and Challengers Playoffs 3. But the first two times, they got bounced early. With the new IGL and new young gun in Zekken, fresh off an upset of Sentinels, XSET seeks out to make a true run with the team's eyes on Berlin. Full episode transcription below the dotted line:

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Mitch Reames
Hello and welcome into another episode of Esports Mehta from nursery gamers. I'm your host Mitch Reames eSports meta is a show looking at the current trends on top of Esports we place a big focus on valorant book cover all the top titles at various times. Today's guest is one evaluates rising stars. His name is Brandon Cole Jensen, but you probably better known by his initials bcj, a former Apex legends Pro, he made the transition over to valorant, granting a variety of open tournaments, including plenty of NSG events before being signed to exit in January. We recorded this episode on July 12. Just one day after exits best performance so far invalidate the squat with two new additions in second and depth who joined established core of pure ayran and bcj went to the grand finals of stage three challengers one to do so they beat sentinels rise and 100 thieves before eventually losing the rematch to sentinels in the Grand Finals. With that initial win over sentinels xA, grab the top seeded challenge playoffs in August. And that's the final gatekeeper before trip to Berlin for stage three masters bcj Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me on the show. It's a pleasure.

Mitch Reames
Anything I missed in that intro that you have people to know about yourself? No, not really. Sorry. Good. Beautiful. So we're going to start with challenges one, even though we aren't actually publishing this until closer to challenges playoffs, so it'll serve as a nice reminder for people about excess performance. And starting off with the most important thing the biggest storyline that came out of this you guys beat sentinels and there isn't any question whether or not settles is the best team in the world right now after a run through stage two masters without dropping a map. You guys eventually lost the rematch in the Grand Finals but you took another map there which made the final tally three last for you guys and for for sentinels. I'm curious before you guys beat that. Do you know the last time sentinels lost?

Um, yeah, I heard something ridiculous. I think it was like a like a 16 maybe even double digit somewhere in the double digit of, you know. I think that was like that amount of matches. They've played somewhere in the double digits of not even losing a map. I mean, it was unreal. Yeah. So it was a long time.

Mitch Reames
Yeah, they they were on a crazy run through challengers vitals through stage two masters did the open qualifiers, their last loss was actually April 22 202, and box and challengers to nearly three months ago. And I asked that not to talk about sentinels here. But to illustrate how impressive this wind was, especially taking three maps with all the best teams in the world didn't take a single map. What made you guys so successful? It's something that a ton of the best teams in the world have tried and failed to do over the last few months.

I mean, you know, we came in and we play confident, I think Sonos is one of those teams you play and you naturally you know, play a different way than you usually do. They kind of a team that forced the issue on you make you play different make you play a little, you know, outside the box, but you know, if you stick to your game plan, which is where we did, we made sure that we were going to stay confident play our game. And that's what we did. We came out strong against them. We weren't like, you know, scared anything to play them. We were pretty excited.

Mitch Reames
Yeah, it that's one of those things that sounds really good on paper, like, Hey, we're just gonna go in and play our game. But the way they play took a lot of teams who were going to go in and just play their game and forced them to not play their game, I guess it for lack of a better term. What What was it to, hey, we're going to stick through this, we're going to get this like, how is that game plan prepared in a way that made it so yeah, we're gonna stick to our game plan. And we're actually going to be able to, with some of the other teams tried to and then like four rounds, they're like, crap, we have to go like, try something else.

Yeah, I guess it goes to our like metaphor to the team, we have, like a bunch of veteran leaders and, you know, even young guns with, you know, good experience and balance so far. So all that combined, you know, we kind of were talking about strats, you know, when people were worried or like, you know, when people were down, you know, you weren't getting frags, or whatever, we just started talking about, alright, this is what they're doing. This is what we can do to win. And we were doing those things, we're just focusing on our game plan, focus on our strats you know, our mid rounding was pristine. Yeah, everything we were doing, you know, mid match after match pre match. It was perfect. And, you know, I credit that to, you know, Don, our coach and def, you know, our leader. You know, he's been, you know, leader in and out of the server for us. And it's been, it's been great to work with him so far.

Mitch Reames
That's awesome. And I want to get back to some of your performance. But I'm curious, you mentioned bringing up def and the new person and the young guns, Zach. And I imagine one of those two new additions both brought on in June brought to the team that you guys are missing.

You know, second is a very flexible player, he can play just about anything and even plays like a star duels role as well, which is really nice to add. Because not all star duelists can flex you know, letter deals just play one or two deals and that's about it. But having him on board being able to play the rays, you know, in Just absolutely go crazy on it and flex on to the stuff that we need on other maps like sky and stuff, you know, it's great. And he's got a great personality. He's such a young kid, but you know, he's he's, you know, really good role model for us. And he's actually got a great attitude. He brings a lot of strategy to us that we didn't you know, think he, you know, naturally would being so young. But um, yeah, he's been a great addition, I love Zack, I've been loving playing with him so far. And you know, it's been, it's been very, very, you know, a welcoming experience for him so far.

Mitch Reames
I love it. It's cool. You bring up the attitude. So I talked to all of x, X's four co founders, for people unfamiliar with the org, and I talked to all of them as they founded the org. It's only about a year old now. And whenever I was talking to them, it's like, Hey, what do you guys goals, like we care about attitude, we care about people that have the right head on their shoulders gonna approach this game in the right way. And that is, you know, in addition to skill, which is obviously important, attitude was something that they always said, Hey, this is what we're looking for. This is something that is crucial to us building our teams. And now you can see the results of that only year odd competing in a bunch of different eSports and having success in quite a few eSports as well.

Yeah, I mean, it really goes a long way people don't really realize how, you know, good your environment can be just with a few good attitudes on the team, you know, it's actually a game changer in high, high stress matches, you know, it's it's a game changer, and it makes everyone played better and makes everyone play different, you know, so it's great.

Mitch Reames
No doubt, no doubt. Going back to this series, you know, you mentioned the new leadership from def zek. Its flexibility. But you were actually the the team leader in both those games against the Sentinels, you taught them both. And you led the team in ACS in both with 236 the Grand Finals at 274 in the wind earlier in the tournament, what was going well, for us specifically in those matches?

Oh, you know, my team sets me up to you know, when those clutches You know, my team is really the ones entering into the bomb sites. Yeah, I'm like, the third guy in, you know, so I'm naturally set up for these positions. But, um, you know, I think it's just my flexibility on the new silver roll. I had to pick it up when I first joined accet many people don't even know but it was like my third or fourth best role I didn't even really place over at the time and, you know, over time, I, you know, put my head down learn the, you know, the agent, learn all the nuances. And, you know, I think that's just really why I don't think a lot of servers are catching up right now is because, you know, only a few of us are really putting our heads down and grinding the agent, you know, watching what other regions are doing, maybe, but um, you know, you got to have a system that supports you for sure. Some teams just play support soba and that's fine. I kind of play more of an aggressive fragging role. And so you send more output from my role. But, you know, everyone is got a different SCA Arab style, everyone's got a different team comp, you know, just depends on where you want from that room. And my team expects me to frag and clutch so that's what I do.

Mitch Reames
We love our Silverman's on the show, we had average Jonas from EU on the show a few episodes ago. He's You know, one of the most famous Silverman's out there, as well as being an opera singer, which is just a very interesting background that that man has, but he loves to solve and so we love so that as well. On the cool staff, right, your your, you know, the attitudes clearly covered through your deflecting to your teammates, we appreciate that. That's always great. I'm not gonna let you totally get away without talking you up a little bit more. Because your 274 ACS was actually higher than any player was able to get to get sentinels in all the states you masters that featured all the top teams from around the world. So as you look towards challenges playoffs and hopefully stage three masters, is that important said an important thing to know that you can compete with the best The world has to offer on the biggest stages, especially as you look towards potentially entering some international competitions.

Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, me more especially than most pros, because I don't really come from a CS background. But these guys have crazy experience in CS. I mean, they've been Atlanta, they've played a 585 shooter on you know, on stage before, you know, my background comes from apex, which is a battery. Oh, yeah, sure. I've played on stage I played the X Games been in Poland. Those are an ad team land 2018 land. So I've played you know, on the big stage, but not necessarily in a five to five shooter. And when I first made the transition, yeah, that was my thought, you know, can I really do this full time? Can I make a career out of this? And now I said, You know, I love this game. I'm just gonna commit to it. I left Apex full time. Yeah, I was competing a little bit on Apex back when I first started playing down there, but I just I gave it all up. I committed fully on valorant and I was a free agent for about six months until you know EXA gave me a chance and yeah, to finally come full circle and to play you know, as the top performer against sentinels. I mean, yeah, that's a dream come true for me. Knowing I can do it and, you know, getting ready for the first international LAN. I mean, that's, you know, that's gonna be the next goal for sure.

Mitch Reames
Absolutely. If you if you ever have any doubts You can always look back to that and be like, no, I can do this I've got I've got the absolute top tier there, you know, we can reach that level when when we need to. So talking about Apex a little bit, it's a really interesting game because we are actually seeing a few people pop over who have pro level Apex experience. The other one most notable is probably Psalms, on sentinels. What do you think Apex gave you this other players might not have had coming straight from CS.

Definitely ability usage and teamwork. I mean, that game is coming down to the microsecond. So you got to be on the same page as your teammates. So you know, having, you know, knowledge of, you know, where my teammates are at all times, how to use my abilities, and all the, you know, specific scenarios. Same thing as all the Overwatch players, a lot of Overwatch players are really, really talented with their abilities, which, you know, many CS players don't really have that, you know, in a background with, they got to kind of learn that skill. So yeah, I say, my teamwork with my teammates, my communication, those are probably the three biggest key points for me that, you know, Apex really brings over it's, it's kind of like, you know, if you're in a tense fight in apex, it's down to the seconds, literally, if you make a mistake, in those seconds, your your whole game is lost, you just wasted 30 minutes, you know, sitting in a building to lose. So you got to be really precise, and you got to have great communication with your team.

Mitch Reames
I feel like Battle Royale doesn't always get the same level of respect it deserves on the pro level, mostly because it's such a casual game that most people play it as, on the pro level. It's one of the hardest eSports out there because of that communication, because you're not fighting one opponent, you're fighting 10 1520 depending on where where you are in the game, or how many people are play it on for your perspective. Can you talk a little bit about you know, I think you agreed that, hey, they don't get the respect that other eSports do in some ways? What do you think that is? And what should people know about? You know, what it's like to be a battle royale pro?

Sure. I mean, the biggest thing for me is I think there's so many players that people don't realize that, you know, there are top echelon teams like there's only about eight teams in this game, I'd say valorant there's only about eight top na teams. And, you know, in apex, there's, you know, 40 teams in a tournament, and sometimes so it gets a little confusing. But the biggest thing for me to note for newcomers to battery cells that, you know, the same four or five teams have been playing the same exact way for months, and probably over a year now. And they're still the best and no one's even close. It's that prior knowledge of just once you like learn the game and get that kind of general understanding of how to play a better owl. No one's even close to you, man, if you have good teamwork, good communication. learning the ins like the ins and outs of battery is so much harder than just playing the game and having a good shot. Or, you know, having good communication, you know, all that stuff is basic level, you know, but learning how to play better learning how to play zones rotations, it's so complex to the point that only five teams in Apex are now are probably top tier. And that's and the game has been out for over a year now. So, you know, it just shows how dedicated these teams are to you know, San at the top

Mitch Reames
Apex specific specifically to has done a really good job of elevating the safe teams, which is a mark of like, This game has a lot of depth to it. Like it's not just a random person who wins this competition, which was one of the main knocks on fortnight eSports, as well, at Apex TSM had an insane run for a long time there at Apex where they were just dominant. And that shows that it is so skill based that there is obviously always going to be some level of randomness that evolves at every battle royale. But when when the safeties keep rising to the top, it says a lot about esport in my opinion.

Yeah. I mean, their dominance was unreal, no one was even close until, you know, kind of the second wave of pros started learning, you know, hey, listen, this is what TSM does step 123. You know, what can we copy? What can we learn from that? And once that second wave came out, nicey there's some more teams there's Yeah, there's about five that's a good handful. But yeah, it's uh, it just goes to show how good these teams are. Man. They're really unstoppable.

Mitch Reames
Definitely. Funny, funny timing on this as well. We actually had to have access to actual Apex legends to clean it. Kenny on this podcast just a few weeks ago. And I'm curious, we talked a lot about a reader mode on that episode and sort of like Apex taking in this mode. That's a lot more familiar to attack shooter background case. If you've played at all given that you now play attack shooter, and you used to play Apex Have you ever spent any time at Apex is read about yet?

Yeah, I have played it. The concept of the game mode is really sick. I actually really enjoy the concept of the game. It's really fun. Apex movement is always going to be really fun to play. The gunplay is always going to be great. I think the only gripe for me is the balancing because you They released it without really, too much pro impact or influence, you know, on the balancing side of things. But yeah, I think once they balance it out and you know, get a some more maps in there, I think it should be pretty fun. Yeah, pretty good mode.

Mitch Reames
Well, I told I told Claire to Getty, I would pass it on to MSG that, hey, we might let's, let's see what let's mixed up a little bit, see if there's anything we could do with this vote. So that's not my team. I can't make any promises. But I would love to see how pros approach that or just sort of how that looks, and maybe a little more balancing that could come out of hosting a few random tournaments here there in the arena mode. I want to jump back a little bit towards sort of adapting, as you mentioned earlier, and how that was a huge thing about a rallies, sports and now is also a part of valor in eSports. Because challengers was the last major tournament without kayo added to the pool, and challenges two teams will have played a major tournament with him in it. Is there any concern at all from your front that other teams will had a chance to get real tournament experience with the new agent? Well, you guys will have to rely on screaming ahead the challenges playoffs?

I mean, for sure if that's always a slight worry, but yeah, on the counter that you can always just watch the VODs as well think we're a team that really analyzes VODs really well. And so you know, we can watch a lot of these teams that are having success with kale, what's not, you know, some teams that maybe played in are not getting success. We can, you know, really watch and study and see, hey, listen, these guys, you know, they're doing this, it's working out really well. This team's not really doing that well with this. So, you know, maybe he's not busted, but well, you know, only time will tell you know, as we said, you know, we got to see some more scrims you got to see some more matches with him in it. You're ranked really isn't a great judge. You can kind of tell a little bit of what he's gonna be like, but yeah, you got to get some lineups. You got to get some team experience before you fully see you know what he's about. So, yeah, I'm excited. But yeah, and I don't think it would be too big of a worry with my team. But yeah, it could be. Definitely,

Mitch Reames
yeah, jury's still out on the new agent. It's actually very similar to what Ted said, I had him on the podcast recently as well. And he was like, Yeah, when it came out, I was like, Oh, it's broken. Because that's funny to say on day one, but you really don't get to know until we see him in tournaments. We see him in the lineup. So it's going to be interesting at challengers to at the open qualifiers, even sort of seeing how teams begin to use them. But even that tournament will still be definitely this period of like trial and error a little bit. And teams might not want to deviate too much from their initial causes so much on the line already. So we'll be really curious to see add challengers playoffs or add challengers to what teams using what teams commit a lot to him without having a ton of practice or even high level practice going into it? Yeah. What are your initial reaction to the agent actually talked to 10s the day came out, and he hadn't played it yet. So I'm curious what what your thoughts are playing it,

um, I've played him and he seems really powerful in the current meta, a lot of teams are no hard anchored into sites right now. And if you throw that knife, it just silences the entire bomb site, a lot of these maps are designed in a way that, you know, there is some type of object he can throw his knife on, and it lands in the center of the site, and it gets the whole entire site, you know, it's very similar to I like, compare it to me, like playing soba for the first time, you find out all these lineups, you realize how much the dark can get, and you realize how, you know, crazy it can be in some it's, I see the same thing with the knife. Taking abilities way from every single player on the site is a little extreme. And so I think he could be, he could be game breaking on some maps that allow that, you know, cover the whole site. But, you know, we'll see, obviously, you know, maybe I'm thinking maybe it's easy to shoot, you know, who knows, we'll see what, what it looks like in a scrim. But yeah, first impressions definitely looks very impressive. I mean, all this kit is really sick. So you know what the, let's see.

Mitch Reames
It seems from from a more layman's point of view, somebody who watches the games, but has not played them at a high level. It seems like it's a nerf aimed at the post plant. Yeah. All right, if people were struggling with the counterplay, especially at stage two masters, well, here you go, that at this point, do you have blanket counterplay? towards that? Is that is that your approach? As well as that? Is that kind of?

Yeah, same thing with the Viper meta, they were trying to find something to like, kill the ability like spam, you know, it's not a great solution. I'll say, you know, it's, it's not great, because you're not really fixing, you know, if my Viper is gonna sit in my spawn and shoot Molly's across the world, you know, it's not going to stop her. So, you know, we'll see how they're gonna deal with it. But, you know, I think it's an interesting take, I think, you know, we'll see how it plays, but you know, it could do more harm than it is going to do good. Who knows?

Mitch Reames
Possibly, that's that's always the danger there, but it definitely does. Feels like a little bit of like a wet blanket fix. Like we're just gonna throw this over the entire thing not a ton of new what's there with his kid. It's like, Alright, everything's got have fun. But we'll see how it works out I'm at least interested to see it and it's gonna be cool to see how people adapt to it. That's always you know, interesting in eSports and it's the nature of the game that sometimes you qualify for a tournament and then the game changes by the time you play the tournament that you qualified for very unique at sports but just sort of the name of the game I suppose. I talking about your current agent pool, you're a silvermine, bitter sage and Viper mixed in there as well. And I noticed the server goes away with breeze. What's the thought process on the on that map for that choice? Is that something that might change as well with more reps as people start figuring out better angles for silvo? Or is there something that just doesn't work on that

map? I think the biggest thing for me when I first played sovann Brees was that you can't get as much use out of the old as you think you would the oh actually has a range Believe it or not. And breezes the biggest map in the pool for sure. And the range is actually hit a lot. The max range on the old is actually hit quite often when I first played it and so I was like, you know, okay, I got to learn some new you know, Olds because you know, this sobo, you know, how I usually use it, like, just, you know, randomly throughout the room, it's not as good, you know, I'm getting cut off, I got to find, you know, good spots for me to old, which I'd never had to really do on any other map. So initially, we were thinking that and I thought, you know, well, I can play whatever, you know, if we want to try some weird experimental comp, the one we went for the first tournament was the double Sentinel, that was our kind of, you know, experimental, we're going to run this, we think it's good on both sides of the map, we're going to kind of condense the map, you know, and so that's what we ran with. But uh, you know, I'm a very flexible player, I can play just about any role in this game at a high level, I think and at least, you know, learn it in a week and then played at a high level but me picking up the Viper, you know, I had two weeks, maybe three weeks of experience on it, and I was able to perform on that as well. So I don't think it's a big issue for me. And for most of the guys in team two, I'd say the biggest three are second def and Aaron does the biggest flexors next to me, I'd say cuz we only got to play whatever we can, you know, def plays almost all smokes in sentinels. You know, Aaron's been flexing on the new support roles he's never had to before, you know exactly what the sky as I mentioned, you know, all of us can play a lot of flex roles. It's really nice when you're trying to craft that, that perfect comp, kind of find out what works best for you. You know, having those options, having you know, all these pieces, it's just so much easier to you know, craft that perfect comp.

Mitch Reames
That's really cool to have a team with that much flexibility pretty rare as well. Yeah. And especially going into this period right now where you guys basically have a month before challengers playoffs, you know, you're locked into a top seat of challengers playoffs and now you have a month to theorycraft. What does that open up for you during this time knowing Hey, we don't need to be maybe at peak for for challengers to we've got some time to experiment to figure out new things. You know, what's it mean to have that assurance that hey, chowders Pass comes around, we'll be there. So let's figure out some new things we can break.

Yeah, I said this last time, I can't remember. I think it was on another podcast. But because we qualified in the last first open qualifier. Yeah, we were in the first one, we got top four we were through to the end. That's what we did last time as well. And you know, it's such a big advantage, man, not only are you gonna, like you said, stay in the low, you know, scrim make new strats you know, kind of reinvent yourself. But you get to watch all these other teams play in the open qualifier play in the challenger, you know, closed qualifier, you get to watch everything go down, kind of maybe steal some things here and there, counter shots and things here and there. And nobody really knows what you're doing on the behind the scenes part. So it's such an advantage to qualify in the first open, then it's, it's actually really sick for these 14. So I think it will be, you know, a true test the teams you still have to qualify, it's gonna be hard as ever, you know, as it always is, only four slots left is pretty ridiculous when you say some of these team names, you know, so, you know, we're blessed to be in the top four, for sure.

Mitch Reames
You bring up a really good point, my initial reaction, why is that earlier question about kayo is like all these other teams are going to get some reps on it. But in reality, you get to see their kayo strategy, whether they plan to use them whether they don't plan to use it out there. And meanwhile, you guys come up with your own thing and nobody knows your attentions to play him or not play. So that's an interesting flip. I didn't even think about that. That side of it.

Yeah, it's kind of like the double edged sword when you compete, you know, you give it a lot of valuable experience, but so do other teams, you know, with these VODs they're all over the place. So you can you know, go on YouTube, go on Twitch. Find them. Watch what you Did you know watch what they like to steal or what they want to counter next time, so you kind of have to reinvent yourself that to every big event for sure.

Mitch Reames
Definitely, version one, also very talented at that they sort of reinvented themselves going into stage two masters and had a lot of play a lot of people bamboozled, I will describe liquid in particular, were some of their looks. They're just like, what is going on right now. And so it just just highlights, again, teams that have the flexibility and have the willingness to change are finding success at the biggest competitions and you know, going into it too, knowing, hey, this works well, challenges one, but we got to change, you know, we have to come with something new is the mark of a good team and mark of a really successful team.

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, I can credit that to the entity and Whitby those are two flexible players, for sure. benedi being their leader more specifically than a flexible player. Yeah, he just plays controller, but, you know, it's one thing I've always learned from him is he said, over and over is, you know, put your head down, keep to the grind, and, you know, be willing to change, you know, that's the biggest thing in this game is stay ahead of the curve, you know, don't get lazy, you know, keep keep grinding, and you know, you'll see the performance, you know, over time. Definitely.

Mitch Reames
I'm curious, you know, challengers playoffs is coming up, it's gonna be this huge experience. And you mentioned earlier how you don't have a ton of that that same land experiences some of these other CS players might have had, what are you most looking forward to? As you enter challengers playoffs? It's us sentinels, 100, thieves and envy, right now qualified, what are you looking forward to, as you enter that with three spots in Berlin out of the eight teams,

I am looking forward to some more tense matches, I think every match we played in last challengers was actually really close. You know, somewhere, you know, a little bit more bloody than other, but you know, they're all pretty tense matches, you know, a few rounds go our way, we, you know, make it dotes here, you know, we win those maps. So, any map we lost, it was, it was close, it was tight. And, you know, I was pretty happy with the performance we had. And, you know, I think any of these teams can beat anybody. You know, I think that's what every team is kind of thinking right now. Hey, listen, you know, the skill gap is really close right? Now we need to come out, you know, with our best game plan, you know, we need to come out strong, because, you know, it's anybody's game, you know, we're so close with these top four teams that, you know, maybe besides sentinels being above everybody, you know, everyone's really close, and anyone can beat anyone. So, I think that's what all these teams are thinking right now. It's like, how can we, you know, find that upper edge, you know, how can we, you know, edge ourselves out to get these top two slots? Because I believe everyone's got sentinels in one of those two slots. Just how can you slot yourself into that, as well? Now, I got to find out what your matchups are. Find out who you got to beat. I'm sure that's the envy 100. thieves are thinking, you know, how can we be each other? Yeah, definitely going to see those names in the top of this tournament for sure.

Mitch Reames
Absolutely. And now that you guys have sort of ascended that level, I think you're already on the come up. But if there was any question of whether or not you guys are a top tier team, in NA, that question has been answered after this last weekend's performance. So congrats on that. I am curious if there's something that you feel like people don't know about this team about exit as an org about us specifically, what's something that you want people to know that they don't? Right now, or you think they don't know right now?

Hmm, I say it's our dedication as a team. You know, I don't think a lot of people realize how much work we're putting in to succeed. And I don't really think people realize how much work this core has put in, you know, even before I joined, these guys worked tirelessly to make themselves better, even when they weren't getting the results they wanted, you know, it, it wasn't a reason to quit, it wasn't something, you know, maybe we should cut down on some practice. You know, they these guys, you know, were the hardest workers, when I joined Donnie and I, I kind of fit really well with that. And so it was a perfect fit for me. You know, obviously, the Corps changed a little bit now. But you know, that philosophy still stays the same, you know, we were the hardest worker, you know, team out there, you know, competing with the best of the best. And that's kind of how you got to stay up there, you know, you can be the best of the best, but if you aren't willing to put that time in and work, you know, like sentinels or anybody else, you know, you really won't stay there. And you've seen that with some teams now, you know, hitting their top of the top and then you know, kind of bottoming out now. It's really just that dedication, that grind, you got to stay, stay in the grind and you got to be willing to, you know, play as much as you can.

Mitch Reames
It's certainly difficult to stay on top just ask Europe's two teams from stage to masters who will fail to qualify in their first run at challengers playoffs in EU both fanatic and Team Liquid both missing that. So it's hard to stay on top, especially with the entire world watches all of your clubs and your strategies at the biggest stage, so we're coming to the end of our show, but I have to ask you about battalion 9044. So Twitter, I saw you listed first a group of games that made you the gamer you are today. And you told me before we start recording it was also your first lead. Can you tell that story of your first lead in battalion? 1944?

Yeah, so basically this game came out. It didn't really have a good following, but I wasn't really playing games super competitive back then I played Overwatch, God top 500 once I was super excited, you know, I was like, Yeah, like, Let's go, I finally got some visual recognition, you know, of me being good at the game. And then just game the time comes out. And that was the actual, like, first game that I saw progress. I was like, Damn, like, I'm good at this game. Now let's see what I can do with it. I played a bunch of tournaments. Love the community. I still talk to many of them today. So you know, made some lifetime friends. And I think the biggest thing for me was just how natural the game came to me. It was a call of duty shooter basically, it was corps called duty jumping and shooting running, you know, running gun and it was an SMD It was a search and destroy, so you know, to bomb sites like valorant. And so game really natural to me. And I think that was why I kept playing it even though it was nothing really in it for me outside of fun. And I just went to school. I played it for fun. And then once that first land came around, I didn't have a team. I didn't make one with Lex who is one of my best friends. For sure. We went to that land we built the team. It was a couple other people play valorant I was to NACA pride and hero that was the full squad they'll shut up and we went to the first LAN in Philly we won nobody thought we were gonna win we were like the fourth best team there we went we played our heart out at two in the morning the tournament finished or something wild like that all sweating it like midnight and yeah, we won that best of five we came out of the winner so the back end we took that that's a three or it was a five I think it was and it was it was probably the best time of my life. It was it was really fun and I think that was definitely the point where I knew Okay, this is what I want to do for sure like I want to find a game that I love and you know with some money in it and you know I want to grind it and I want to be a pro player This is the most fun I've had so that was definitely the biggest thing for me was the time that's why I think it you know helped my career so much maybe not the game was big or you know with the beat the game had a big scene but you know definitely created my career and I think Lex and I think my teammates and yeah, I think the developers of the game for sure.

Mitch Reames
I love that you know over there sure gamers we love at ice 2am sweatbox rock adelphia finals that's kind of kind of our bread and butter right there. Try it out to end them usually at 2am but hey sometimes the games reblog at the competition is just too good to cut it off. So glad that you were able to have that experience at frag adelphia and have to mention frag delta is coming back we just announced yeah Lance are returning so if you want to be an open player if you want to get an experience in an FPS game that you know I we take pride that a lot of the people who we talked to here who are beside in our pros, have some sort of frag adelphia experience have some sort of nursery gamers experience in their past so be sure to be on the lookout for open qualifiers you want to give it a shot, head to Philadelphia and play some frag adelphia we'd love to see y'all there bcj is a pleasure talking to you my man I want to give you a chance to plug your socials Twitter twitch YouTube whatever you got out there What do you want people follow and subscribe and look out for

so it's good I guess what I'm most active on is my Twitch and my Twitter my Twitter is at T one bcj Shout out to T one for so that's my out there and my Twitch is the bcj which is where you'll find me streaming irregularly I hate to say it no no no no consistent schedule yet but you know that's where I'm most active. So make sure you follow me on those two platforms for sure.

Mitch Reames
I will link his twitter at his twitch underneath this episode in the description section. So check that out add please check out some of the other eSports met episodes. We mentioned some of them during the course of this podcast. We're also talking to Casey pioneers, Chief gaming officer about their little run through challenges to being an open qualifier team and sort of making an appearance on the top stage that's the most recent so that we have 10s Apex legends x set average Jonas Emily, other people coming on this show as well. So please be sure to like follow and subscribe new episodes every Friday of Esports betta Hope you enjoyed this one. bcj again, thanks for coming up.

Thank you. Thanks for inviting me again.